Glenn Beck is joined by Harmeet Dillon, founder and CEO of the Center for American Liberty and civil rights attorney, to talk about the recent ruling that overturned the ban on prayer on the steps of the Capitol, and why it is a good thing.
00:04:14.640So the federal court, after three years of litigation, has ruled that in our lawsuit on behalf of Reverend Patrick Mahoney,
00:04:23.700that the ban on prayer in the Capitol perimeter is unconstitutional and needs to be permanently enjoined.
00:04:34.980Now, when we had the perimeter put up around the Capitol that Nancy Pelosi's orders, that prevented people from praying in what was typically known as a public area for prayer, for demonstration, etc.
00:04:53.780So that perimeter barred Reverend Patrick Mahoney, who has come many times to D.C. to pray for the country, pray for the troops, pray for the people who need salvation,
00:05:07.260which, as we all know, definitely D.C. is the hottest, hottest concentration of those people who need that prayer.
00:05:15.120Oh, I thought you were going to say hottest, hottest ring of hell, but...
00:05:21.600But what's striking, Glenn, is at the same time, members of Congress had actually been allowed throughout the last three years to hold demonstrations there.
00:05:33.700So, for example, Cori Bush has had sit-ins there to protest the police and to call for cutting police funding.
00:05:45.140Well, wait, wait, wait, I'm not even sure I understand that.
00:05:47.300So, you couldn't organize one as a private individual, but if a congressman or a senator wanted to organize a group of people to come and protest, that could happen.
00:06:00.560And so, you know, but this just smacks of what all of us have experienced as citizens, which is that there's one set of rules for the elites, and they can do whatever they want, including on our people's house.
00:06:15.280And we can't access it for purposes that are protected by the First Amendment.
00:06:21.140So, we filed this lawsuit after Reverend Mahoney was barred from praying there on the Capitol steps, something that he's done many times over the years.
00:06:29.720And then the court denied it time after time after time.
00:06:34.240And finally, last week, we got this positive ruling with a permanent injunction saying the ban on prayer on the Capitol steps was unconstitutional.
00:06:43.360And it doesn't just benefit our client.
00:06:45.440It benefits all Americans who want to access these traditional First Amendment forums.
00:06:56.100You have to get a permit, which is appropriate in a mixed-use area like that.
00:07:02.100We have to let the people in Congress also access the steps.
00:07:06.240But it is no longer going to be the case that members of Congress can have die-ins and sit-ins and lie-ins there while the rest of us have to just stand outside the fence with our noses pressed against it.
00:07:16.820So, there was a district, a D.C. federal court?
00:07:22.260And it's one of those same judges who's repeatedly ruled against the January 6th folks and, you know, kind of been – we had three years of negative rulings from this judge.
00:07:34.840And then, boom, on our motion for summary judgment, we did win it.
00:08:04.200I don't think it's a ruling that's capable of much – to be frank.
00:08:10.420But, yes, it is possible that it goes to the Supreme Court if one of the parties isn't satisfied with how the D.C. Circuit rules if there's an appeal.
00:08:20.900Harmeet, let me – we're talking to Harmeet Dillon.
00:08:24.600LibertyCenter.org is the website you can go to.
00:08:27.260They do a lot of great work and I know would appreciate your support.
00:08:31.200But, Harmeet, tell me what you think is coming in the Donald Trump trials.
00:08:38.480I know it has now been indefinitely suspended down in Florida, I think officially yesterday or the day before.
00:08:45.280The case in New York is just sheer craziness.
00:08:49.700I talked to Alan Dershowitz yesterday and what he has seen – I mean, I'm hoping there's at least one person on the jury that just won't give and say, I'm not playing this game.
00:09:01.220But what do you think is going to happen to all of these court cases?
00:09:05.460So, it looks like the New York case is the only case that's going to go to a jury verdict before the 2024 election, starting with Florida.
00:09:16.440I think the judge has actually flipped the tables and has actually put the prosecutor on trial at this point.
00:09:23.620You know, they're effectively asking Jack Smith's team to account for evidence tampering and, you know, bias and selective prosecution.
00:09:34.620And this is, I think, the best possible way a case like that could go.
00:09:40.280And it's appropriate because far too often, Glenn, in our country – you know, I'm obviously in favor of law enforcement, but I'm also, before that, in favor of the Constitution.
00:09:50.580Far too often what we see here in this country is selective prosecution because lazy lawmakers put too many laws on the books and there's no other –
00:10:00.620you know, that's what happens when people have so much power and there's no check on it above the courts.
00:10:07.000And so, you rarely see a judge step up and call to account some of these things.
00:10:10.660I've seen selective prosecution in pro-life cases where I represent protesters and journalists who are exposing it.
00:10:17.800I've seen it in other cases like this.
00:10:24.020In D.C., the special counsel's case is likely to have a wrench thrown in it by the Supreme Court over the issue of qualified immunity.
00:10:35.580And, you know, I think the most likely outcome there in the case is for the court to send it back down to lower courts,
00:10:44.260either the D.C. Circuit Court or the trial court in D.C., and have them make findings about which of the allegations against President Trump in that case,
00:10:55.800having to do with, you know, the January 6th issues, concern his conduct as the President of the United States,
00:11:05.320which is, in my opinion, most if not all of his actions that are alleged, or candidate Trump.
00:11:12.260And so, that's the same rule that actually was established by the D.C. Circuit Court in a case that I'm handling for President Trump,
00:11:18.480involving civil lawsuits by other members of Congress and Capitol Police.
00:11:23.220And then, we have this case in New York, which is absolute miscarriage of justice from beginning to end,
00:13:05.520That was one of the judge's early rulings.
00:13:07.680And when the expert was finally allowed to testify, the judge, again, limited him to not being able to talk about the federal election law.
00:13:16.120So, the Trump campaign decided not to call him, after all, because he was basically gagged to the point of not being able to testify on anything.
00:13:23.200And then you get to this series of rulings by the judge, starting with not recusing himself, as is required by New York law,
00:13:34.700when his daughter has a financial interest in the outcome of the case.
00:13:38.160Starting with excluding pro-Trump people from the jury, like Orthodox Jews, by insisting on holding court on Fridays,
00:13:45.640when most courts do not meet and have jury sessions on Fridays, excluding witnesses, refusing to throw out charges, excluding evidence,
00:13:56.180allowing the other side to badger and bring in evidence and stack the jury in their side.
00:14:01.760So, there have been a number of, I would say, almost on a daily basis, the judge has made rulings that are susceptible to reversal on appeal,
00:14:09.840including clearing the courtroom and scolding witnesses for President Trump.
00:14:14.800I mean, there wasn't a day that it didn't just shock the conscience for me as a lawyer in the conduct of this trial.
00:14:21.340So, what we hope for, Glenn, just as you said, is a single juror, or two jurors, or three jurors,
00:14:28.560who refuse to go along with this railroading of President Trump.
00:14:32.460And that would result in a mistrial, a hung jury, and then it would be possible for them to try to retry him.
00:14:39.900But I just think it's, and by the way, if the judge properly charges the jury,
00:14:45.720and allows them to go for the misdemeanor only, then he has to dismiss that at the end of the case,
00:14:52.280because it's beyond the statute of limitations.
00:14:55.080So, you know, that case is falling apart.
00:16:37.940She is a writer living now in Los Angeles.
00:16:42.120She has won the Gerald Loeb Award in Investigations, the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Journalist Award.
00:16:51.600She is also the wife of Barry Weiss, and the two of them are building the Free Press, a new media company,
00:16:58.460which has dramatically changed the scene of journalism, and I think, in many ways, brought journalism some hope that maybe truth can return.
00:17:53.580So, Nellie, your book, and I just said this to Stu off-air, your book is one that I, I don't know if you know this,
00:18:02.300but I collect American history, and I'm trying to preserve both the good and the bad in case it ever is lost or destroyed,
00:18:12.460and I have the third largest collection behind the National Archives in the Library of Congress,
00:18:17.920and your book is going to be put into our vault because I read something somewhere that said that your book preserves this moment in amber,
00:20:48.780And I was looking for some, you know, I'm a features reporter, done investigations.
00:20:53.440I was looking for someone to profile, to do this.
00:20:56.880And I was thinking, you know what, the most honest thing is to write about when I was part of this.
00:21:02.300And when I did one of these and, and the feeling of it and the feeling of the pleasure of it.
00:21:09.320And the, the, I wanted to write something that wasn't a flat, um, that wasn't a flattening description of what it is to be part of that movement and, and part of canceling someone.
00:21:25.660And it's a feeling of community and all of these things that make it complicated.
00:21:29.160And, um, so I ended up just writing about that and then sort of the day that I didn't cancel someone, didn't cancel a friend, was the day that my time within the movement kind of abruptly ended.
00:21:43.660Because being part of those mobs, we see them a little less frequently now, but being part of those mobs is a very important part of being with the new progressive moment and the new progressive movement.
00:21:56.380Um, so you're right on saying that we're seeing maybe less, I think we're seeing some of the stuff with the Palestinian movement.
00:22:07.320And I think in this next election, I hope and pray, uh, both sides will be reasonable and rational, but there are those who want to destroy the Republic.
00:22:56.460But I think in part, that's because of the success of the revolution.
00:22:59.560I think it has so woven into our institutions and into our, um, into our universities, our newsrooms, our sense-making institutions, that, that it doesn't need to be as loud.
00:25:27.060Being friends with people who disagree with you and having dinner with them and, and being curious to things that might not help your political party.
00:25:36.120Like these are really challenging things.
00:25:38.260And I think we're backsliding a little into what is one part of human nature, which is tribalism, which is shouting and the threats of violence.
00:25:49.400And I mean, you see it in the protest now with people chanting Intifada revolution.
00:26:00.400You know, the very hard thing is to maintain what we used to see on college campuses where it was sort of, um, peaceful protests and, um, people disagreeing and talking in normal ways.
00:27:04.040Well, the movement has very effectively, and I write about this in a couple of chapters about how the movement has, has taken concepts like merit or individualism or hard work and turn those into inherently racist concepts is the idea of what they'd say.
00:27:23.260And it's a very bizarre thing to say that, right?
00:27:26.580Like that individualism and merit are not racist ideas and it's not, and it's actually sort of racist to say that they are like, these aren't like white ideas.
00:27:37.740That's a sort of racist thing to argue, but that is what the, the modern progressive has been arguing and very successfully.
00:27:44.320And so you saw, I have a chapter about San Francisco in the book and you saw in San Francisco, the, um, banning of eighth grade algebra, the sort of accelerated math, because to offer accelerated math.
00:27:56.580To public school kids was to be racist.
00:28:01.400Like if, if we just are honest and take it at face value, that's ridiculous.
00:28:05.820And, and now we're seeing that ideology, not just, I mean, San Francisco is five years ahead of the rest of the country, but we're seeing that now basically in all of our institutions, including yeah, medical schools.
00:28:17.480And the idea that the MCAT is not the be all and end all.
00:28:21.060And, and that in fact, maybe the MCAT should be the third thing on the list that we look at, like maybe the fourth thing.
00:28:28.240And that's a really strange moment we're in.
00:28:32.660And, and I don't even think it's purely racial.
00:28:34.760It's not as though it's that there, there's just a preference for racial minorities.
00:28:39.680And it's, it's the interesting thing, but particularly the Free Beacon story is I think a lot of it is just ideological.
00:28:47.220It's who writes the best DEI statement, who writes the best.
00:28:51.260Cause the racial demographics, it's not like they're changing that dramatically a little bit.
00:28:56.420Like anti-Asian discrimination is something that you can track, but it's mostly that all of a sudden ideology has become, um, like the most important thing on your application.
00:29:05.340I hate to say it like this, but I think it's, I think it's true.
00:29:09.200Just as rape is not about sex, uh, the cries of racism most times are not really about race.